New Federal Position Targets “Domestic Terrorism”

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced the creation of a new position in conjunction with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and George Washington University (GW) specifically for combating “domestic terrorism.”

As most of us are aware, the SPLC’s view of “hate” sometimes does not include real hate groups. They list the “Family Research Council” as a ‘Christian hate group’ simply because that group is opposed to gay marriage. The GW program is designed for “empirical research,” and along with the SPLC are considered consultants for this new position on domestic terrorism.

It’s a match made in hell, and could cause some difficulties to right-wing conservatives, particularly those who are more vocal than others.

Just this week, we appointed a new Domestic Terrorism Counsel to serve as our main point of contact for U.S. Attorneys working on domestic terrorism matters. The new DT Counsel will not only help ensure that DT cases are properly coordinated, but will also play a key role in our headquarters-level efforts to identify trends to help shape our strategy, and to analyze legal gaps or enhancements required to ensure we can combat these threats. The new counsel will also play an important role with the DTEC by providing its members with insights from cases and trends from around the country.

Who are the enemy?

The DOJ views “sovereign citizens” as a threat on the same level as ISIS (or ISIL as they put it). Carlin acknowledged that membership or association with groups they view as “violent extremists” is not illegal in America.

The definition: Adherents to the sovereign citizen ideology believe they don’t have to answer to any government authority, including courts, taxing entities or law enforcement. And although most sovereign citizens peacefully espouse these views, some sovereign citizen extremists resort to violence.

Creative fabrications

Most patriots are NOT “sovereign citizens” according to that definition. Most of us would completely understand if one of our fellow right-leaning friends got shot or arrested if they went over the edge of sanity and tried to kill our neighbors. IF their “actions” were legitimate and not creatively fabricated by the DOJ.

But there is a deep concern. It comes from this part: .

“Yet, while we continue to address this evolving international threat of violent extremists, we have not lost sight of the domestic terrorism threat posed by other violent extremists. Terror and extremism do not always originate elsewhere or take place outside our borders. Homegrown violent extremists can be motivated by any viewpoint on the full spectrum of hate. Anti-government views, racism, bigotry, anarchy and other despicable beliefs. When it comes to hate and intolerance, no single ideology governs. …we see an alarming new trend – an increasing number of disaffected people linked together in their adherence to violence over the Internet and through social media.” John Carlin

Heads up

The difficulty comes as we see the definitions of “racist,”, “bigot,” and “anti-government” become wider. Black on white crime is nothing, while white on black crime is dubbed “racist.” The historical roots of America are now “racist,” whereas the blended version with no rough edges is the accepted one. You’re a “bigot” if you don’t like Islamic extremism, you’re ok if you do. Christianity is viewed by this administration as a dangerous religion rather than Islam.

So should we be worried? We should all be wary in what we post, or say on any social network. With the new Domestic Terrorism Counsel comes a renewed focus on people of the right who are not happy with this government. That could very well be you and me.